Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The Eucharist and the poor

THE members of Pontiﬁcal Committee for International Eucharistic
Congresses that includes the national and local committees that are tasked to
prepare for the 51st International Eucharistic Congress gathered in Plenary
Assembly in Cebu City this April 24-28, 2015.Te Plenary convened around 82 international
and local delegates of bishops, priests, religious and lay from 47 countries.

Foremost in the agenda of this signal gathering was
the presentation of the theological and pastoral perspectives that will
serve as the mooring of the forthcoming Eucharistic Congress that will be held
on Jan. 24-31, 2016 in Cebu City. In the previous congress that was
held in Dublin, Ireland in June 2012 the Eucharist was seen as
“communion”. This time it will be seen as “mission”.

The Plenary pointed out that “the mission of the Church
in Asia has to be undertaken in dialogue with the poor. This is because while
the continent is rich in culture and its people are rich in human and religious
values, a great multitude of them live in situations of poverty, powerlessness,
marginalization, victimization and suffering ... They are poor not because
their continent lack natural and material resources but because they are
deprived of access to material goods and resources... Oppressive and
unjust social, economic, and political structures keep them from enjoying
the rich natural patrimony of their lands.”

The Holy Eucharist, which according to the theological
reflections of the Plenary Assembly is the “Church’s dialogue with the poor” upholds
the values that negate the causes of poverty such as selfishness and
greed. “It calls into question apathy and individualism...it confronts
oppressive totalitarian leaderships that put political and economic advantages
above people...(it) challenges utilitarianism, consumerism, and materialism
that treat the poor and the weak as commodities and tools...”

This theology, however, does not trickle yet into the perspectives
and lives of most of the faithful. Perhaps the greater mission is to make the
Eucharist understood by the greater majority of the faithful, who are
mostly the poor, in the midst of natural or folk religiosity and fanaticism
that blur the Eucharist from where it should be.